Strength & Conditioning Certification

Introduction
Olympic Weightlifting can be a sport by which athletes compete for that total weight of 2 lifts: the snatch along with the clean & jerk. The training methods utilized in Weightlifting will also be employed by Strength & Conditioning coaches as a means of weight training to get a great deal of other sports. Most significant reasons for exploiting various weight training modalities such is made for power development. There are many variations on the party’s theme of power training. Many of these training modalities include plyometrics (Wilson, Elliot & Wood 1990), assisted and resisted training (Faccioni 1993a; 1993b) and speed and acceleration drills (Cinkovich 1992). A well known method used to increase athletic power is Olympic Weightlifting (ie power cleans, push presses, snatches, jump jerks as well as their variations) conducted inside the weight room (Garhammer, 1993). It’s traditionally been seen as productive way of producing general explosive ability (Takano 1992; Stone 1993; Garhammer & Gregor 1992). However, there are more important considerations that demand to get addressed when implementing Olympic lifting exercises into the Strength & Conditioning program of the athlete, many of these include movement competency, training age, sport and coaching time with athlete. The purpose of this article by Elite Performance Institute (EPI) would be to supply a biomechanical and physiological discussion as to the reasons weightlifting exercises are useful to improve athletic performance and just how they ought to be performed in a training program. For more information, please visit www.epicertification.com

Power Defined
Power has been defined as the optimal blend of speed and strength to make movement (Chu 1996). Specifically, power represents ale the athlete to make high degrees of work through certain distance. The harder power an athlete possesses the higher the level of work performed (Wilson 1992). Power can be a blend of strength and speed:
POWER = FORCE (strength) X VELOCITY (speed to move)
There are many physiological and neural adaptations which comprise the strength component (Moritani 1992). Physiological adaptations to strength contain an increase in muscular tissues through hypertrophy, ligament density and bone integrity (Tesch 1992a). Neural adaptations (Schmidtbleicher 1992) that could be produced are: (1) increased recruitment of motor units; (2) increased firing rate of motor neurones; (3) synchronised firing of motor neurones; (4) rise in intra-muscular coordination; and (5) rise in inter-muscular coordination.
Speed to move comprises various interrelated factors (Ackland & Bloomfield 1995). These are; (1) muscle fibre type; (2) skill; (3) muscle insertion points; (4) lever length; (5) muscular posture; and (6) elastic energy utilisation of the series elastic component.

Olympic Weightling exercises facilitate development of the very center (Strength-Speed and Speed-Strength) of the force-velocity (FV) curve (see above). The FV curve acts a road map to Strength & Conditioning Certification Ireland according to the kind of strength developed from each exercise, session or phase of coaching inside the program. Because of this, the force & Conditioning coach can effectively plan what type of power to merely develop and which training modality (powerlifting, Olympic liftining, plyometrics, etc) is best utilised to elicit these adaptations.

Conclusion
Concern still exists regarding ef?cacy of including Olympic weightlifting exercises inside the weight training programs of athletes in sports besides weightlifting. These concerns generally get into 3 broad categories: 1) Perceived time forced to study the movements because of the complexity of the lifts. 2) An absence of idea of the opportunity bene?ts that could be produced from performing Olympic lifting exercises correctly. 3) Concern on the risk of injury as a result of these weightlifting movements.
It is evident there is a large number of biomechanical benefits of these lifts with limited disadvantages. The biggest risk has been of the perceived danger of these lifts. On such basis as the evidence presented by Brian Hammill of the British Weightlifting Association (BWLA), it could be stated with con?dence the risk of injury is as low or lower than most sports providing there exists quali?ed supervision provided by certi?ed Strength and Conditioning coach who are been trained in coaching the weightlifting movements.
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